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Show p?ilir fOF EDITOR ILSOi preme Court Commissioner Reports Findings in the Contempt Case. np, ) MALICE IN COMMENT a i Wspaper Held to Be With-i With-i Its Rights and Its Article H! Substantially True. $ lotii EFFERSON CITY. Mo., April 19. tojj Uam R. Nelson, editor and owner of fci Kansas City Star, was not suilly ialico in the publication of the arti-uon? arti-uon? Ifor which he was adjudged guilty 1th a ?ontcmPfc f co"rt and sentenced to rii .Y in last February by Circuit Mbu- Judge Joseph E. Guthrie. Tho article itself was "substantially true," and "unless in the court's opinion that arti-clo arti-clo in itself is contemptuous," tho petitioner peti-tioner should be discharged. Those were tho findings reported to tho Missouri supreme court today by its commissioner ii the case, Charles O. Crow of Kansas City. Gist of Article. The article11 complained of stated that Judge Guthrie had refused to dismiss dis-miss tho divorce suit of Minnie L. . against Claudo F. Clcvingcr until attorneys' at-torneys' fees were paid and that the refusal came after the Clcvingors had been reconciled out of court and asked the dismissal of the case. "Your commission finds," says the report, "from the evidence submitted and considered, that tho article referred to was substantially truo and as nearly a correct report o"f court proceedings as could bo oxpected from a layman, and the experience of your commission- er has been that many lawyers would have made as many errors as appear in this article. ' ' The author of this article complained of, Mr. Murphy, was a layman, and moreover, even had ho beeu learned in the law ho would have been of the opinion that tho order in the Clevingor case was unusual in ihat it imposed conditions con-ditions upon the right of the plaintiff to dismiss a suit for divorce. Cause for Comment. "There was cause for comment on tho order in the Clevingcr case denying deny-ing the plaintiff the right to dismiss her ca.se until tho husband complied with the conditions imposed in tho order, or-der, and I am inclined to believe that Mr. Murphy was correct in saying that it tended to prevent a reconciliation of husband and wife, in which society is deeply interested." The supreme court today set the date May for tho hearing of Mr. Nelson's case by the court en banc. Tho case was carried to the supreme court by Mr. Nelson on appeal from Judge Guthrie's Guth-rie's decision. |